


Familial Reflections

by godcomplexfics (godtiercomplex)



Series: The World Keeps Turning On Its Axis [18]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, South Asia Family Funtimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 10:04:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5201759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiercomplex/pseuds/godcomplexfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nalin just really wants to go home. Like, now. Right now. But no, dinner with the family can't be so bad, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familial Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a really sweet anon on my blog! I just hope they like it!!

The meeting ran over, so they ended up ordering out for dinner. It wasn’t too often that they all met up like this, but once they did, it was bound to be chaotic. There had been a host of disasters since the last time they had all gathered like this, and Nalin wanted to be happy that they were able to come together like this, but Akmal wouldn’t stop tossing out conspiracy theories, and Afia was egging him on, and Emran was playing a video game, and Keshini was talking on the phone, and honestly the only ones who were _listening_ to him were Tashi and Sana. Niral was shamelessly listening to music on h—their phone. (He was trying to get better at that, this pronoun thing, after a lecture from Tashi. His lectures were the stuff of Nalin’s nightmares.)

“Okay,” Nalin said loudly, and Keshini held a finger to her lips and shushed him, _but Akmal was being louder than him, how was this fucking fair?_ He sighed and said, “Okay,” in a quieter, more intimate voice; Tashi and Sana leaned in. At least some people were listening to him.

“Nalin,” Sana said, “is it true that your people are _suing_ England’s people?”

He honestly didn’t want to talk about that. At all.

“This is not a question and answer session, this is a ‘what are we supposed to do next’ session. Any ideas? Please speak now.”

“Listen, goat boy,” Afia asserted loudly, “that’s not at all how that poem goes!”

“I know that poem by heart!” Akmal beat on his chest and growled at Afia while the tinier girl stood firmly, and what the fuck were they even arguing about in the first place?

“Did he just beat on his chest like a monkey?” Sana asked.

“I think he did,” Tashi answered, sounding amused. Nalin, however, was not. This whole day had been nothing but a train wreck. First, his car had gotten delayed, and second, he was in the Maldives on what had to be the hottest day of the year. In September. It just wasn’t _right_. His family would be the literal end of him. He pictured a river flowing, his problems washing along it, and tried to calm down.

“I should have taken a picture,” Sana said, voice heavy with regrets.

“He’s bound to do it again,” Nalin assured her.

“Sorry,” Keshini said loudly into her phone to combat the noise around her, “but _some_ people just don’t know how to use their indoor voices.” She glared at all of them. They were crowded around one end of the table in the hotel meeting room while Afia and Akmal stood at the window and argued back and forth.

“I AM USING MY INDOOR VOICE,” Nalin shouted, just to spite Keshini. She left the room and slammed the door.

“Mature,” Sana retorted. “Really mature.”

“Nalin,” Tashi scolded in his ‘I’m starting to get disappointed in you’ voice. Nalin hated that voice.

He turned pleading eyes to Tashi and said, “They won’t listen to me.”

“When have they ever?”

Nalin thought about that. They had when they had been children, back when he had had more power. Back before the wars of the modern era. But no, that wasn’t true, was it? That was his nostalgia talking. Things hadn’t been better then, and they weren’t better now. They were just different, and as much as he hated that, he had to accept it. His family might be fucked, but at least they had each other, right? At least they were able to be together, right?

He laid his head down on the table. “Never. You are all such brats.”

“I’m not a brat,” Sana protested. “I listen to you!”

“Sometimes. But you weren’t with us all the time, especially when those three were younger,” he indicated towards Emran in the corner, and Afia and Akmal who were pulling strange faces at each other. “They terrorized me!”

Tashi laid a comforting hand on his back and rubbed at his tense muscles. Tashi was honestly the only sibling he had who actually cared about him.

But no, that wasn’t true. Hadn’t they all stayed at his bedside for those few weeks he’d been in a coma? The others cared, they just had a shitty way of showing it. That in mind, Nalin looked around at everyone again. They were just as tired as he was. They had been at this all day and no answers had yet been found.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s just eat dinner and call it a night.”

“Giving up?” Keshini said, coming back into the room as the wait staff bought in their meal.

“Giving in and knowing when to quit are marks of a true leader,” Nalin objected. Keshini squinted at him, and he frowned back at her.

“You’re not the boss,” Emran said, but he was closing his 3DS, and Nalin called that a victory. Akmal and Afia came to the table and sat down, Akmal next to Keshini and Afia next to Emran, forming a half circle.

“Technically, Niral is,” Keshini said. “Niral, call us to order, dear.”

Niral looked up from their phone, and frowned as they took a seat. “Come to order and eat.”

“Okay,” Nalin began. “Sure, let’s all listen to Niral.” Everyone ignored his complaints and started eating. Nalin was beyond done, so he looked around at his family. But for some odd reason, they were all together and no one was yelling at anyone else. It was almost peaceful. It was also alarming.

Something would have to give, he just knew it. They couldn’t do peaceful.

Sana looked at him with concern, and he smiled at her.

“What was Akmal like as a child?” she asked as she passed over some naan to him. “You mentioned that they terrorized you as children, but I don’t think I ever met Akmal back then.”

“That was because he was scared of the ocean,” Nalin replied. “He would puke and everything.”

“Hey, Nalin,” Akmal said, “shut up.”

“He also used to wet the bed,” Nalin said, getting into it now. “Emran did too for a bit.”

“Oh, my god, what? Don’t tell lies, I never did!” Emran argued.

Sana laughed. “Wow, that’s something.”

Nalin hummed thoughtfully. “They would pull the worse pranks on Arthur and me. I didn’t mind the ones on Arthur, of course, but I never did anything deserving of bugs in my bed.” Tashi patted his hand soothingly.

“You did tons!” Akmal protested.

“He would make us write scripture out by hand when we misbehaved,” Emran told her.

“Didn’t he make you go without dessert for a week once?” Afia asked.

“Yes!” Akmal cried. “He was the worse. He deserved all those pranks we pulled and more,” he said petulantly. He was sore over his bedwetting no longer being a secret, Nalin was sure.  

Keshini took a sip of her soda. “At least they were having fun, right?”

Both Akmal and Emran shared a look, united for once by their disdain for Nalin’s stories, and then both glared at him. Nalin shrugged. It wasn’t anything new for those two to put aside their difference and yell at him as one.

Well, no, that wasn’t true. For so long, they hadn’t been able to get along at all. They had just as much pain between them as Akmal and Nalin did. Maybe more. After all, they had grown up together, shared with each other, and then been dealt as severe as a blow between them as Nalin and Akmal.

“At least they were,” Tashi stated with his most soothing voice. “They were good children, regardless.”

And Tashi would know. He had been there often enough to see proof of that.

“And Afia was a lovely girl. Her head was always buried in a book, though,” Nalin said fondly, and Afia grinned at him. He was indirectly seconding Tashi’s comment on them being good kids, and he wondered if Emran or Akmal realized that.

“Well, they were unlike you,” Niral remarked. “You were a nosy boy. Instead of minding your own business, you were always where you shouldn’t be.”

“Niral, I was not!”

“No,” Keshini added, “you most certainly were.”

He groaned. But at the very least, it was not as awkward a dinner as it could have been, and everyone was somewhat getting along. For once. It could be worse.

* * *

After dinner he stepped outside to smoke and was surprised when Keshini joined him.

“What's that look for?” she asked.

“I thought you'd be off with Sana at this point, spending sisterly time together and what not.”

“Afia is letting Sana braid her hair. I got kicked out,” Keshini explained, “and I wanted a smoke. So I knew I could find you out here.”

“Didn't bring your own?”

“It's not going to kill you to lend me one.”

“It's hardly lending if I'm not going to get it back.” Even still he tapped out a cigarette for her out of his pack and lit it. She took in a deep breath and exhaled.

“It's good to have you back,” she said. “Even as annoying as you are.”

“I'm not the one who was on the phone earlier.”

“A _friend_ was having a crisis. I figured that was more important.”

He made a noise of agreement. “I suppose.”

They smoked in silence for a bit. Keshini was almost as old as he was and had the scars and the history, as rich as his own, to prove it. They were so dissimilar in almost everything yet so similar sometimes that it was a surprise.

“Sometimes,” he said, thinking out loud, “I wonder what you would have done if you had been the one to bring them up. If you were India.” _Would everything have been better?_

“I would have done a better job,” she said flatly.

“Thanks. You really know what to say.”

“But,” her voice softened, “I wouldn't have wanted to trade places with you for anything. You are where you are meant to be. And I am where I am meant to be.”

He watched her smoking and felt love for his sister for saying that. “Thanks, Ammi.”

“It's not like you to lose confidence in yourself. You march forward and we'll be right there beside you. Just keep doing what you've been doing.”

“Just keep marching forward, huh?”

“You and Akmal both will lead us somewhere great, I know it. We've been through hell, but we're able to sit and eat dinner together as a family, so it's not that bad now, is it?”

Nalin thought about that and took out another cigarette.

“You know? I was thinking that earlier, too.”

“Then don't ask me questions all serious like that!”

“Well, excuse me.”

Keshini hit his shoulder with the flat of her hand. “You're doing better. Don't doubt that at least.”

“Doing better?”

“Yes,” she replied simply. But when pushed, Keshini wouldn't tell him what she meant. Still, he took it to heart and smiled as he got ready for another day with his family. They weren't broken or defeated; struggling, perhaps, but they were still family and united under that. They'd sort out their problems given enough time, just as they always had.


End file.
